Sonia takes a page from Natwar’s book, to pen her own

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has said that she will write her own book to tell the 'truth' and rebut allegations made by former external affairs minister Natwar Singh and others. Vote: Do you believe Natwar Singh's allegations about the Congress party?

indiaUpdated: Aug 01, 2014 00:39 IST

HT Correspondent Hindustan Times

Congress president Sonia Gandhi said on Thursday she will write a book to “reveal the truth”, a day after former confidant Singh caused a political stir by revealing she turned down the top job a decade ago following an appeal by Rahul Gandhi who feared she would be assassinated.

Party leaders also slammed the former foreign minister, who fell out with the Gandhis years ago, for disclosing private conversations in his new tell-all autobiography, ‘One Life is Not Enough’.

“I will write my own book and then everyone will know the truth,” a peeved Gandhi told journalists in the corridors of Parliament. “The only way the truth will come out is if I write. I am serious about this.”

“I can’t be hurt I have seen my mother-in-law riddled by bullets, my husband dead,” she said. “I am far from getting hurt with these things ... Let them continue to do this, it will not affect me.”

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh rejected Natwar Singh’s allegations in a television interview that important government files were sent from the Prime Minister’s Office to Gandhi’s residence. “Some conversations that take place in private shouldn’t be used for commercial purposes,” he said.

Top Congress sources, however, said Gandhi was upset and had not given any serious thought to writing any books. “She was extremely upset that private conversations have come into the public domain,” said a party insider.

Natwar Singh was foreign minister in the first UPA government that won power in 2004. He was forced to resign under a cloud of scandal in 2005 after a UN inquiry named him as a beneficiary in illegal payoffs relating to an Iraqi oil-for-food programme. Thereafter, he went into political wilderness.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said Natwar Singh was trying to shore up sales of his book.

“We deny all allegations and innuendos ... It is unfortunate that a person who rose to occupy a top post due to Congress and was made aware of many sensitive facts, misuses and distorts those facts after being removed and publishes baseless things,” Singhvi said.